{"id":84406,"date":"2025-06-06T20:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T20:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/84406\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T20:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T20:12:10","slug":"tigers-to-select-jahmai-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/84406\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers To Select Jahmai Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tigers are going to select the contract of infielder\/outfielder Jahmai Jones<\/a>, reports Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press<\/a>. Infielder Andy Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez<\/a> has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo as the corresponding active roster move. Petzold suggests that outfielder Akil Baddoo<\/a> could be designated for assignment to open a 40-man spot, though it\u2019s unclear if that\u2019s pure speculation or not.<\/p>\n

Jones, 27, signed a minor league deal with the Tigers in the offseason. He has since been playing for Triple-A Toledo and putting up good numbers, with a .276\/.392\/.482 line and 139 wRC+. That\u2019s at least partially inflated by a .345 batting average on balls in play but Jones also has six home runs and is drawing walks at a strong 11.7% clip while keeping his strikeouts down to a reasonable 22.4% level.<\/p>\n

In addition to that strong work at the plate, Jones has stolen eight bases and bounced around the diamond. He has lined up defensively at all three outfield spots and second base. He hasn\u2019t had any action at the infield corners this year but has done so previously in his career.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a nice performance but the issue with Jones is that he has always performed well in the minors but hasn\u2019t clicked in the majors yet. Dating back to the start of 2021, he has a .263\/.382\/.453 line and 122 wRC+ on the farm. In the majors, he has a far worse .198\/.257\/.278 line and 50 wRC+, though he\u2019s only been allowed to make 137 total plate appearances scattered over several seasons dating back to 2020.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the Tigers envision a short-side platoon role for Jones, a right-handed hitter. The Detroit outfield has three regular lefties in Riley Greene<\/a>, Parker Meadows<\/a> and Kerry Carpenter<\/a>. They also have other lefties getting playing time, including Colt Keith<\/a>, Zach McKinstry<\/a> and Trey Sweeney<\/a>. Though Jones hasn\u2019t clicked in the majors overall, he has a .304\/.360\/.565 line against southpaws and has good numbers against them in the minors as well.<\/p>\n

Jones is out of options, so he can\u2019t be easily sent back down to the minors if the Tigers want to shake up the roster later. But if he manages to stick, he can be cheaply controlled for years to come as he doesn\u2019t yet have enough service time to qualify for arbitration and won\u2019t be able to get there by the end of this season.<\/p>\n

Jones getting a roster spot will cost Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez his. Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez was claimed off waivers from the Rangers going into 2023 and has been a fixture of the Tigers since, but with diminishing production. He hit .264\/.312\/.433 for a 104 wRC+ in 2023, followed by .241\/.295\/.357 and an 87 wRC+ last year. So far in 2025, he\u2019s down to .213\/.292\/.319 and a 77 wRC+. He\u2019ll try to get back on track in Toledo. Once he spends 20 days on optional assignment, he\u2019ll burn his final option year and will be out of options going into 2025.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tigers are going to select the contract of infielder\/outfielder Jahmai Jones, reports Evan Petzold of the Detroit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[10912,3806,5,147,53,2583,12017,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-84406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-akil-baddoo","9":"tag-andy-ibanez","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-detroit","12":"tag-detroit-tigers","13":"tag-detroittigers","14":"tag-jahmai-jones","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114638248093414877","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}